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The Sunday Doughnut Shop is the idea of sous chef Vincent Knittel and head pastry chef Jeremy Brutzkus, who won a recent episode of Donut Showdown on the Cooking Channel. It will feature “a changing (weekly) selection focusing on classics, as well as seasonally-inspired varieties, while supplies last.” On the TV show Brutzkus made a miso, fennel seed, and ground almond doughnut and a salmon and cream cheese bagel doughnut, among others, but so far the offerings seem more approachable, such as Boston cream or peach cobbler. And yes, of course they sold out. They’re doughnuts.
I hadn’t been back simply because, by 2012, Longman & Eagle’s progeny were all over town (especially Logan Square) and I was trying them—not just the ampersand restaurants, Bangers & Birds & Donkey & Engine, but others that owed something to the Longman model, or at least went to the same church, like Farmhouse or Trenchermen or Billy Sunday. No surprise that it was influential; Longman & Eagle was the rare restaurant that spoke perfectly to its moment—comfy porky small plates with fancy, we-could-make-everything-like-this-if-we-wanted touches, encyclopedic seriousness about beer and whiskey, a uniform of flannel shirts and alt-country on the sound system, a whiff of Portland “Don’t like it? Fuck you” attitude (though the Longman folks showed some very Chicago sardonic good humor in reprinting their worst Yelp review and handing it out as a postcard). Even Michelin realized that they needed to notice it if they wanted to look up-to-date, giving Longman & Eagle the only Michelin star won by a place that would piss off your grandparents.
